Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. This morning at Senate estimates, the Secretary of the Treasury was asked whether the decision to cut penalty rates would create more jobs. The secretary said, and I quote: 'I don't have an opinion on that.' Can the Treasurer confirm that his own department has not advised the government that this will create jobs and, in fact, this is just a straight pay cut for 700,000 Australians?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. I refer him to page 142 of the Fair Work Commission judgement. Paragraph 688 says:

On the basis of the evidence before us, we have concluded that reducing penalty rates may have a modest positive effect on employment.

The only organisation that has been looking at the issue of penalty rates has been the Fair Work Commission. The reason they were looking at penalty rates in the Fair Work Commission is that the Leader of the Opposition asked them to. He actually asked them to go and look at penalty rates. So satisfied was the Leader of the Opposition with his own work in cutting penalty rates for workers when he was a union representative that he asked the Fair Work Commission to have a look at this as well; and, when the Fair Work Commission had a good look at this, that is what they concluded. The Fair Work Commission has made the judgement on this matter, not the government. The Fair Work Commission has done it on the basis of the instructions provided by the Leader of the Opposition when he was in government. So it is not for the Treasury to be asked or to be providing advice on this matter. The Fair Work Commission, at the direct instructions of the Leader of the Opposition, has come up with the result which has resulted in penalty rates being cut, just as they were under the agreements he himself signed.